


nobody knew me at home anymore

by urwasted



Category: Black Panther (2018), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Kid Fic, Tony Stark Has A Heart, if you learn anything from this angst fest it should be that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 08:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17762954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urwasted/pseuds/urwasted
Summary: Home is where the heart is.





	nobody knew me at home anymore

**Author's Note:**

> the main premise for this was lowkey highkey stolen from [undertow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15067538/chapters/34932488) by my ultimate babe lilthenaltum which you should totally read

Maria had a sign that hung in their country house, right above the archway into the kitchen.

_Home is where the heart is._

Tony broke it when he was seventeen.

The last time he’d been back there was before Afghanistan and even then, the walls felt empty.

_Home is where the heart is._

Proof that Tony Stark doesn’t have a heart is right there, spelt out in shattered wood on the floor of a quiet country house.

—

Pillowed between muscle and tissue, caged by ribs and hardened steel, sits Shuri’s heart. Tony knows this, because the damn thing feels like it’s going to beat right out of her chest some days.

Pushing up and out, like the wings of a butterfly; the first time they kiss, the first time they fuck, a pair of glasses disappearing and back exactly two minutes later. T’Challa leading the hundreds of Wakandan soldiers over the plains to meet them. The first time he calls her pretty baby. When Bucky stumbles into her arms. Shuri’s heart beats so freely sometimes he thinks it’ll make him sick.

It takes three days of radio silence for Tony to understand that it may never beat for him ever again.

The Stark family estate sits on twelve acres of gorgeous Upstate New York real estate, and Tony hasn’t visited in over a decade. His feet leave footprints in the dust on the floor, and it’s evident nobody else has been here for much, much longer than that. The archway into the kitchen is missing something.

He nearly drinks himself to death on Howard’s bourbon, and his heart barely skips a beat when he realizes he might die without even having said goodbye. There’s nothing in there except splintered wood and nanotech anyway.

He sleeps in one of the guest bedrooms, not daring to go near the master bedroom where Howard had slept every summer since he was three.

Pepper calls, leaves one voicemail and nothing more. She’s pregnant, had been before the snap and she’s back now, both of them safe. He regrets ever having that dream.

He sends flowers and a box of strawberries.

She calls again, four months later, tells him he’s not that funny, and they’re having a girl.

Tony cries for the first time in thirty years, and sends more flowers.

He has almost the entirety of his workshop flown out to the country house, and takes down the walls between the master bedroom and the gym in a fit of rage. DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers whirl around happily at finally having their own space. Tony just sighs and gets to work.

The winter is cold, and he ignores the pit in his stomach that longs for Wakandan nights and smooth, dark skin under his hands.

Pepper gives birth, and she names their daughter Ariadne. Six pounds and four ounces, screaming, with a shock of dark brown curls. She has Tony’s nose. He’s one foot into the cockpit of the quinjet before turning right back around and into the house. He prints out the picture and frames it above the archway into the kitchen.

His heart gives one pitiful beat, and it feels like guilt.

Tony pretends that the only pretty baby he’s ever known is the one in the picture, the one he’s never met, the one made of his own blood.

Shuri doesn’t call, doesn’t write, and he pretends.

Pepper visits when Ariadne is three weeks old. Tony cries again right there in the doorway.

She looks pointedly at the picture, but says nothing. The up-curve of her lips says enough, and Pepper’s always understood him better than anyone else anyway.

They eat dinner by the wood fireplace, baby cradled in his arms. He barely touches his plate and tears leak steadily out of his eyes when her little hands reach up to grasp at his fingers. Tony’s sure he’s never cried this much in his life and he vows to never go more than a week without seeing her ever again. Pepper takes one of the guest rooms and they dig out his old crib from the basement.

Tony learns his own daughter during those two rainy weeks in March. Pepper tells him he’s a good father, and he cries.

She doesn’t ask him to come home, mostly because he never really had one in the first place.

She leaves Aria with him for three days on his own, and he’s grateful for it, even though he knows it must hurt her to be away from her daughter as much as it hurt him.

On the second day Ariadne wails at three sharp knocks on the front door.

The curve of Shuri’s belly is pronounced even through the layers of her coats, and the warm orange light of the porch lamp casts her face in bright relief. Ariadne only screams louder, realizing it’s not her mother, kicking at his arms with all the force of a hurricane.

“Tony.”

—

Tony had a picture frame hung in his country house, right above the archway into the kitchen.

_I’m pregnant, it’s yours._

He breaks it that night.

He sweeps up the glass and looks at it long after she leaves. The walls feel empty and he holds Aria close.

_I’m pregnant, it’s yours._

Proof that Tony Stark has a heart is right there, spelt out in a due date written in blue ink on his wrist.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr babes! [bruhhemianrhapsody](https://bruhhemianrhapsody.tumblr.com)


End file.
